World Music By Philip V. Bohlman

Philip V. Bohlman is a professor of music and humanities at the University of Chicago. He has already had many books about ethnomusicology and anthropology published. His 2001 ethnomusicology book ‘World Music: A Very Short Introduction’ examines the effects of musicology, anthropology, sociology, history, and political science on what we call ‘world music’.

The book is divided into seven chapters or ‘thematic leitmotifs’ as Bohlman puts it, these are: ‘In the beginning Myth and meaning in World Music’ ‘The West and the world’, ‘Between myth and history’ a focus on Arab music, ‘Music of the folk’, ‘Music of the nations’, ‘Diaspora’, ‘Colonial musics, post- colonial worlds, and the globalization of World Music’.

Each chapter assert not only their independence but also their interconnection to one another in some way.

Returning themes in each chapter are the ideas of ‘encounter’, his experiences are excursed, a musician (in the case of chapter five, the Eurovision contestants Dana International, and chapter six, Bob Marley), an examination of meaning and identity, and world music scholars or ethnomusicologist.

In terms of encounter he associates the music as being part of the experience of it, and to the circumstances that it is experienced. There is a pressure in the way one ‘encounters’ world music, being arbitrated by global capitalism and marketing. This could mean a traditional music is taken out of its framework, thus a post-colonial developmental dominion or "cultural imperialism made sonorous" (147). World music can also have an opposite means of identity establishment, reawakening, and a portrayal, supporting understanding and tranquillity.

Bohlman introduces several ways of approaching and interpretation of the glob...

... middle of paper ...

...has been thought of as a universal language without boundaries, but this expression is but a reflection of the desire to project a global significance.

Cities are the hubs of societies and make consumption criterion of world music as with any medium. It is not possible to separate the social contexts of the music they produce. For example in chapter one Naashrat Fatah Ali Khan knew the differences that had the musical practice of Sufism where Sufi music was used de-contextualization. The difference points out the book’s main point, to interpret popular repertoire with the practices of the World Music characteristics by revival and nostalgia. World music is refreshed with new meanings and significant in today's world. Traditional melodies and functions change when western music is subjected onto them and be prepared for global consumption from international labels.